Video games themselves are frequently blamed for activating violent crimes, but in one case, the Sony PSP may have saved the life of a Tennessee kidnap victim. While one of the kidnappers played the PSP and eventually fell asleep, the kidnap victim managed to loosen his bindings before finally getting the chance to run out to the hotel office and declare "They are trying to kill me".

Quote:
As reported by the Knoxville News-Sentinel, Jose Ignacio Ortega Garcia was kidnapped, beaten and tortured by a pair of men who held him captive in a filthy motel room for nine days.

Garcia, a business owner, was forced to write checks to the men totalling more than $17,000. His kidnappers also made him call his wife and tell her that he had left her for another woman in order to keep her from calling the police.

Charged in the case are Jose Sanchez, 18, and Juan Gonzales, 28. As reported by the Times-Sentinel, it was a video game which finally ended Garcia’s ordeal.

On June 21, Gonzales gave Sanchez a hand-held video game that would prove to be Garcia’s savior…

“Sanchez played the video game virtually all day that day and much of the night,” [according to an FBI report]

Garcia used the distraction as an opportunity to loosen his bindings. When the exhausted gamer fell asleep, Garcia bolted, running from the room to the hotel office, screaming, “They are trying to kill me…”